Students Cross County Lines for O.C. Schools : Education: Hopes for better curriculum, safer atmosphere prompt parents to enroll children here.

For six years, Beth Cirilo’s three children went to school where they were supposed to, in Hawaiian Gardens.

But as the Long Beach woman got more involved in the school at the southern edge of the ABC Unified School District, she didn’t like what she saw: Her fifth-grade son caught a classmate with a knife, few showed up at Parent-Teacher Assn. meetings and teachers seemed to spend more time dealing with discipline than education.

So, like more than 600 parents in the greater Long Beach area, when school starts this week Cirilo will take her children to Los Alamitos Unified--just across the Los Angeles-Orange counties line, but a world away as far as she is concerned.

“It was just so shabby, I was very unhappy with their education,” Cirilo said of the old school. “The children come into the classroom (in Los Alamitos), and it’s all eyes on the teacher. In this other school, the kids are up and around and talking. It’s just a big night-and-day difference, a big difference. . . . I just want the best for my kids.”

Cirilo’s three children are among nearly 1,300 students who transferred to the well-regarded Los Alamitos district from outside its boundaries last year, about half of whom came from Los Angeles County.

Other Orange County schools near county borders attracted several hundred more students from Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, while a handful of students also trekked from as far as Inglewood, Corona, Vista and Murrieta to attend Newport-Mesa and Irvine schools.

The most popular destination in Orange County for transfer students is Los Alamitos, where about 15% of the population comes from outside the district’s turf. The district is a good deal more affluent than its neighbors, with a median household income of $45,000.

Statistics on transfers for the upcoming school year are not yet available.

State law allows students to transfer districts if a parent works nearby or it is more convenient for child care--as long as there is room. While those are the official reasons stated on inter-district transfer applications, many parents said they are drawn to Orange County schools in hopes of a better education and safer school campuses.

In 1994, the laws will be liberalized so parents and children can transfer to a district without citing any particular reason, as long as there is room. Educators whose districts attract out-of-town students--typically largely white, suburban districts that offer school-based child care and rank high in standardized tests--expect Orange County schools to become even more popular.

Most welcome the transfers: each student comes with about $5,000 in state funding.

“We have a real community effort in maintaining and establishing good schools. We have virtually no gang activity. We have a great teaching staff, excellent administration. . . . We basically have what it takes to have real successful students,” said Edgar Z. Seal, superintendent of the Brea-Olinda Unified School District on the northern edge of Orange County. “We do attract other students.”

There were 350 students from outside Brea-Olinda’s boundaries attending school in the district last year; 173 of those were from Los Angeles County.

Many are attracted by Brea-Olinda’s decade-old day-care program, which runs from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at all of the district’s elementary schools for $125 to $155 a month. Others choose the district so they can be close to their children while at work.

And some, like Christine Anderson of Chino Hills, simply think the product is better on the other side of the county line.

“I wanted desperately to get into the school system,” said Anderson, 33, one of about two dozen parents who tote youngsters along Carbon Canyon Road, across the border, to Olinda Elementary every day. “If I couldn’t have her in this school, I don’t know what I would do.”

Before her daughter Zandria entered kindergarten three years ago, Anderson visited her neighborhood school in the Chino district, and checked out Olinda to analyze her options.

“It was really big, I’d heard a lot of stuff about gang violence and that the schools weren’t that good,” Anderson said of the Chino school. Olinda, on the other hand, “just gave you a good feeling. It was small, everybody knows everybody. If a first-grader needs a hug, and a sixth-grade teacher is there, he turns around and gives her a hug.”

Administrators in the Chino and ABC districts said they are not concerned about students transferring to Orange County schools because about the same number of students transfer into their schools. They said their schools are as strong and safe as those in Orange County.

Steven Goldstone, who heads the 25,000-student Chino district, said his elementary schools are “healthy” institutions where gangs are not a major problem and academics are solid. He suggested that many Chino Hills residents choose to enroll their children in Orange County schools because they are from there and therefore more comfortable with the area.

“There’s a perception on some parents’ part, no matter where they are, that the grass is always greener,” agreed Ira Tobin, deputy superintendent of ABC Unified, which serves parts of Artesia, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, Long Beach, Lakewood and Norwalk. “I don’t see a big bleeding out of our district flowing into any particular school. If there were no attendance boundaries, we’d probably have more kids in our district than we do now.”

In Orange County, the districts that attract the most students from other counties are those near the borders, especially the ones that rank high statewide in test scores, those that offer strong arts and athletics programs or those that send large numbers of graduates on to college.

Urban districts with high numbers of students whose native language is not English, such as Anaheim Union and Santa Ana Unified, have more students leaving than coming in. On the other hand, in Los Alamitos, 90 students left and 1,274 transferred in; in Irvine, 116 students transferred out and 693 came in.

The most popular by far is Los Alamitos. Long Beach Unified and ABC Unified--nearby districts that serve less affluent communities and whose student populations are more racially diverse and include a much higher percentage of students whose native language is not English--provide the most inter-district transfers.

“It sounds so prejudiced, but I try my darndest not to be,” said Cirilo, who put “ethnic diversity” on her transfer application as the reason she wanted to switch her children from the mostly Mexican-American school in Hawaiian Gardens to the majority-white Los Alamitos district, though the children themselves are half-Mexican. “I just want the best for my kids.”

ABC Unified, which lost 200 students to Los Alamitos last year, has a student body that is about 30% Asian, 30% Latino, and 30% white. Los Alamitos Unified is 77% white.

Though neighbors, the Long Beach and Los Alamitos districts could hardly be more different: with 75,000 students, Long Beach is the third largest district in the state and has more than 10 times the enrollment of Los Alamitos.

In Los Alamitos, 77% of the students are white, while in Long Beach, 24% are white. According to the 1990 census, the median household income in Los Alamitos was $45,000, while in Long Beach it was $32,000.

“We’re not in any kind of war or competition with Los Alamitos,” said Long Beach assistant Supt. Lewis Prilliman. “It’s a fine district, there’s no doubt about it, they do a fine job with their kids. But you need to look at the socioeconomic level of the community, and Los Al obviously has a higher socioeconomic level than we do. I think Long Beach does a fine job with the kids it has.”

In addition to an affluent, supportive community, Los Alamitos boasts several unique programs that attract students from out of town.

Six years ago, Los Alamitos opened the Orange County High School for the Arts, a magnet program that offers concentrations in music, art, theater and dance and attracts about 300 students from districts throughout several counties. Five years ago, the district started an extended day-care program which runs from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., offers an educational curriculum and costs $2.50 an hour.

Since 1988, the number of people transferring into Los Alamitos from other districts has more than doubled, from 532 to 1,274.

“There is a trend toward trying to accommodate families in terms of their unique needs,” said Los Alamitos Supt. Michael S. Miller. “It’s the quality of the educational program and to meet their family needs” that draws people, Miller said. “There’s many, many reasons that it’s convenient for families.”

Long Beach Unified, a massive, sprawling district that lost about 400 students to Los Alamitos last year, has taken some lessons from its neighbor. The district recently opened its own performing arts high school, and this year will launch a copycat day-care program designed by the woman who founded the Los Alamitos program.

Besides those on the borders, central Orange County districts with sterling academic reputations such as Newport-Mesa and Irvine Unified also attract students from afar.

For one father who lives near the traffic circle in Long Beach but works in Orange County, the decision to apply for an inter-district transfer combined convenience, safety, and the quest for the best. He drops his 12-year-old daughter at an Irvine school each morning during his commute so he can be closer to her in case of an emergency and so that he can be confident she is learning in a positive environment.

“If you want to put your daughter in school, you want to put her into a school where they carry guns and knives? Even if that were a good school, if it were in the middle of that environment, how long is it going to stay good?” said the man, who asked that his name not be used. “You have only one chance to educate your children. You mess that up and you’ve ruined a person.”

Crossing the Border

Convenience, safety and good education are the main reasons parents enroll their children in schools outside the district they live in. A sampling of transfers that occurred during the 1992-93 school year in some local districts:

Transfers in Districts From other Near O.C. border Enrollment* counties Overall Anaheim Union H.S.** 24,000 62 243 Brea-Olinda Unified 5,000 173 350 Capistrano Unified 27,000 166 279 Centralia 4,400 32 273 Fullerton Joint Union H.S. 12,000 24 404 Los Alamitos Unified 7,200 610* 1,274 Districts Not-near O.C.border Irvine Unified 21,000 19 693 Newport-Mesa Unified 16,500 9 371

Transfers out Districts Near O.C. border Overall Anaheim Union H.S.** 349 Brea-Olinda Unified 117 Capistrano Unified 377 Centralia 189 Fullerton Joint Union H.S. 381 Los Alamitos Unified 90 Districts Not-near O.C.border Irvine Unified 116 Newport-Mesa Unified 245

* Estimates

** As of Sept. 25, 1992

Sources: Individual school districts

Researched by JODI WILGOREN / Los Angeles Times